


Abby's Whumptober 2019 Ficlets

by DarthAbby



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Blood and Gore, Bombs, Gen, Guns, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Vomiting, Whump, Whumptober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-06
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2021-01-24 05:54:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21333316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarthAbby/pseuds/DarthAbby
Summary: All 31 ficlets I wrote and posted on tumblr for Whumptober 2019, focused on Tony, Peter, and Kate, with some bonus Clint thrown in. Please heed the tags, but understand that anything that happens in these snippets is not permanent or canonical to any of my other fics.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Kate Bishop, Kate Bishop & Peter Parker, Kate Bishop & Tony Stark, Tony Stark & Peter Parker
Kudos: 9





	Abby's Whumptober 2019 Ficlets

**Author's Note:**

> much love and thanks to Chris for rooting me on throughout all of October, mostly by yelling at me in the tags on tumblr <3

**Day 1 - Shaky Hands**

**word count - 227**

She could feel her muscles starting to tremble from exertion. She’d been at this for too long. But no one was coming to help her.

Kate gritted her teeth, trying to ignore the warring sides of her brain - one says let go, the other says hang on, and she had the awful feeling that willpower won’t be enough to win this one. Eventually, her body will give out and she simply won’t be able to hold on any longer. 

The Tower was still dark and silent, except for the occasional, distant crash of something - or someone - being thrown across a room. 

She wasn’t even supposed to be in the Tower tonight, but she had fallen asleep on Clint’s couch after the two of them had taken a beating earlier fighting some goons, and what had she gotten for it? Thrown out of a window with a single putty arrow in hand.

Thankfully, the putty Clint preferred was extra sticky, and was the only reason _she_ wasn’t a sticky mess on the pavement below. _Yet._

Still, she really hoped that Clint and Bruce - the only other people in the Tower tonight - would wrap this up quickly and come to get her soon.

Kate carefully adjusted her grip on the arrow, one hand at a time, feeling a trill of fear as her hands started shaking.

_Hurry up, Clint._

**Day 2 - Explosion**

**word count - 300**

He raised his hands instinctively, but it didn’t do much, of course. There’s not much that can be done about an explosion going off just in front of a person.

He was flung backwards, crashing into a wall. His back ached, his front burned, and his head was now full of cotton.

Peter groaned softly as he tried to get his bearings. His ears were ringing, and one felt suspiciously wet - probably bleeding. He was lying on the sidewalk, gazing blearily ahead at a trashcan and crosswalk. On the other side of the street, now full of abandoned vehicles, he could see flames licking the inside of the pawn shop. The windows had been blown out in the explosion, as well as a good bit of merchandise.

There was the unmistakable smell of cooking meat, and it took him a moment to realize that it was from the guys who had been trying to rob the pawn shop when the bomb had gone off. The thought made his stomach turn, and he rolled his mask up just in time to heave onto the concrete.

Sirens, finally. Or maybe the ringing in his ears was just getting more intense. Peter leveraged himself more upright, scooting away from where he had just gotten sick, and leaned back against the wall for a moment.

Everything _hurt_ to no end. Even shivering - even breathing. The flaming pawn shop swam in front of his eyes, and he fought another wave of nausea. 

People suddenly appeared around him. Cops, firefighters - was that an EMT? Yes, they were walking towards him with a bag of medical stuff. Definitely an EMT. Their mouth moved, but he couldn’t hear anything over the ringing.

He waved them off. Civilians came first. He would be fine.

He was always fine. Eventually.

**Day 3 - Deliruim**

**word count - 207**

The world was hazy and shifting, and thinking felt like trying to count individual blades of grass in a thick fog. Nothing made sense. Had anything ever made sense? He wasn’t sure.

_“Boss. Boss, answer me.”_

Words. He struggled to comprehend, then answer. “F-FRIDAY?”

_“Boss, you’ve been drugged.”_

Drugs…? That made sense. He’d tried some drugs in his youth, but that was a long time ago. He hadn’t tried any today. Not in years. 

_“Boss, listen to me! You need to get to medical!”_

Medical… yeah, that made sense, too. There were things in medical that could counteract whatever he had taken.

_God_, why had he taken drugs, anyways?

_“You didn’t take anything, Boss, someone dosed you.”_

Someone had done this to him? Why would they do that? He didn’t have any friends that did drugs anymore. Rhodey hadn’t even given him a pot brownie since graduation. Who would have left anything lying around for him to get into?

_“Boss, you’re delirious. You **need** to get to medical. Dum-E, can you escort him there?”_

There was a push against his back, a gentle whirring noise. He looked over his shoulder and Dum-E swam into view. “Hey, bud.”

Dum-E beeped worriedly, and herded him out of the lab.

**Day 4 - Human Shield**

**word count - 245**

The guy had grabbed him so suddenly and randomly that his spider-sense hadn’t warned him, more focused on the uneven path of the botanical gardens and making sure he didn’t trip.

Realistically, he could get out in about 0.2 seconds - the guy wasn’t holding him _that_ tightly, and the chokehold was mediocre at best. The gun aimed at his temple was a bit of a concern, but the main reason Peter was going along with it was because he hadn’t been at the gardens as Spider-Man. He was there as Peter Parker, just enjoying the nice weather for the field trip and taking pictures of interesting flowers.

The rest of the class looked panicked. Even Flash was worried. Their tour guide, a very nice young woman who didn’t look much older than most of his classmates, actually looked near tears.

Peter shuffled his feet, trying to alleviate some of the pressure on his windpipe, and the guy pressed the gun more firmly against his temple.

“Don’t move,” he said hoarsely. “Okay, just don’t _fucking_ move - anyone! Don’t move, don’t make a sound, or this nerd dies.”

MJ looked on the verge of a panic attack. Ned was already wheezing a little in that way that meant he _was_ having a panic attack.

Peter bit the inside of his lip, stood perfectly still, cursed his luck, and resigned himself to waiting this out until the guy thought the coast was clear or the police arrived. 

**Day 5 - Gunpoint**

**word count - 315**

Okay, so, on the one hand, Peter knows better than to rush into bad situations with no real way to diffuse them. On the other hand, being Spider-Man is, like, 80% just rushing into bad situations and hoping that either quips or kicks will diffuse it (or at least knock the bad guys out long enough to web them up). 

So, really, he can’t be blamed for hearing shouting and automatically heading in that direction, because as soon as_ ‘someone is in trouble!’_ registers in his brain, he forgets everything else. Even the fact that he was walking home from school with Ned and is not currently a superhero on the outside. 

Which is how he ended up here, hands raised placatingly, trying to think of some way to convince the guy with a gun to stop pointing it at Ned, who had followed him for some reason.

Oh. He was holding Peter’s backpack, which he’d dropped when he started running. The backpack which contained his suit. Right.

“Listen, I’ve got like… $15? If I give you that, will you let us go?”

“And how much do you have?” the guy asked roughly, jerking the gun at Ned, who flinched.

“A-a ten, sir.”

“$25 between the two of you?” the guy scoffed.

“We’re high schoolers, man,” Peter pleaded. “All we got is lunch money and textbooks.”

“Not good enough,” the guy said. “You let that dude with the fancy watch get away - you know how much that shit is worth? Hundreds! No,” he turned, pointing the gun at Peter instead. “You’re twitchy. You and I are gonna stay here, while Chubby gets me more money.”

Ned’s eyes widened as he gave Peter a frantic look.

“It’s okay, Ned. Think _Happy_ thoughts,” he said, praying that Ned got the message and would call Happy as soon as he was out of sight. “You can do this.”

**Day 6 - Dragged Away**

**word count - 267**

_“No!”_

It’s a single word, but the emotion behind it was powerful and terrifying. Tony turned just in time to see one of the goo monsters engulf Spider-Man completely and start disappearing back down into the hole all of them came from.

“No!” he shouted back, preparing to blast over there and save Spidey - save Peter, but one of the goo monsters stuck itself onto his boots and, unfortunately, repulsor blasts hadn’t been very effective against whatever these things are made of. FRIDAY was still running tests to try and figure it out.

“Get off you slimy, disgusting, oozing, _blob_!” he yelled, pouring more and more power into the repulsors on his feet, but it was just making the goo smolder and give off a really awful smell. 

Panic was rising in Tony’s chest. The longer he wasted time trying to get free, the longer Peter was trapped inside one of these creatures, suffocating - oh, god, maybe it was trying to _digest_ him.

That’s _definitely_ not allowed to happen, not if Tony had anything to say about it. 

“FRIDAY, send in reinforcements.”

_“En route, Boss. ETA, 30 seconds.”_

Thankfully, the goo monsters had attacked pretty close to the Tower. When he spotted the incoming armor, he braced himself. “Eject!”

The suit he was wearing broke apart with enough force to push most of the goo out of the way, allowing him to jump up and grab onto the new suit. It folded around him midair, and once he had full control, he aimed for the hole that Peter had been dragged into. 

“Hang on, Spidey, I’m coming!”

**Day 7 - Isolation**

**word count - 317**

Stake-outs are probably Kate’s least favorite part of an investigation. She can _do_ them, of course, it’s just boring as all hell most of the time. Tailing someone is much more interesting, keeps her moving and thinking. Stake-outs with other people are tolerable, but solo ones are the worst.

This was like a solo stake-out, but about a thousand times worse.

Kate kicked at the door, again, and cursed as the pain in her foot got worse, again. But either she could glare at the door and try to figure out how many kicks it would take to break it down (a lot) or she could glare at one of the featureless walls, or maybe the blank ceiling, or even the empty floor.

There was nothing in the room. Not even an air vent. Just the door, with a very thin slot cut in it for a tiny bit of airflow and, hopefully, food at some point.

Kate wasn’t holding her breath on that, though. She’d been in here for close to 30 hours now, by her reckoning, and there hadn’t been as much as a crust of bread pushed through. She’d been given a water bottle about every 10 hours, but they were made of some kind of ‘eco-friendly’ material on a very fast timeline and she had no sooner gulped down each bottle than they had disintegrated in her hands.

She had _nothing_. They had even taken her freaking _hair tie_ before tossing her in here. All the zipper pulls on her suit had been clipped off. Her boots had been taken completely off, leaving her in just her mismatched socks.

She should probably feel thankful that they hadn’t stripped her completely nude, but somehow, this was worse, because she still felt naked.

Kate sat down, letting her head thunk against the wall behind her, and wondered if anyone even knew she was gone yet.

**Day 8 - Stab Wound**

**word count - 254**

The blood on his hands mingled with the red of his suit, darkening the original and spreading in a jagged pattern that followed the spider web motif.

Peter swallowed roughly, sucking in air between his teeth. He’d been hurt before - tazered, punched, kicked, thrown into walls, buried under tons of rubble, even pepper-sprayed on one memorable occasion. 

This… well, stab wounds were different, apparently. They _burned_.

He vaguely recalled someone once telling him to leave the weapon in the victim until they got to a hospital. Not that that mattered, because the asshole had… knifed and flight’d? Bled and fled? 

Whatever, the guy had stabbed him and then run off with the knife, leaving New York’s favorite wallcrawler to bleed all over the dirty alleyway. 

Aunt May was gonna _kill_ him if he died here.

Peter gritted his teeth and raised one arm, intending to webswing away, but _oh - ow - fuck shit that hurts_ quickly lowered it again. Man, why did the guy have to stab him in the side? He needed those core muscles for, like, everything. 

He swayed a little as he pushed himself off the wall he’d been leaning against. _Bus it is._

Ugh, he really hoped that there weren’t too many rowdy drunks on tonight. He just needed to get home so May could stitch him up.

Strike that earlier thought. She was going to _definitely_ murder him for getting stabbed, then bring him back to life to yell at him.

That still sounded better than massive blood loss, though.

**Day 9 - Shackled**

**word count - 231**

Tony shifted slightly, wincing as the movement caused pain to flare in his wrists. The iron - _heh_ \- shackles were heavy, and would doubtless cause some deep bruising. His ankles were also bound, but those were less of a concern at the moment.

His arms were held up so his hands were at eye level, and he was alternating between holding his arms up to relieve the pressure, and letting the shackles take his weight when his arms started to shake from exertion.

It was a maddening cycle, and he was starting to hate the simple repetition even more than the shackles themselves.

The ankle restraints were attached to the wall by a length of chain just shy of being long enough for him to stretch his legs out fully in front of him. The wrist ones had a single chain link, keeping him seated and, as stated before, keeping his arms up.

At least he wasn’t being underestimated this time.

Tony turned a baleful glare upwards, into darkness, unsure of how far away he was from open sky, and cursed whatever luck or comic entity had landed him here.

The team had better find him soon. He wanted his wrists looked at.

He refused to entertain any scenario where he wasn’t capable of getting medical care when he got out of this one.

He couldn’t do that to Pepper. To himself.

**Day 10 - Unconscious**

**word count - 173**

“Wake up,” he whispered fearfully. “Please, _please_ wake up.”

No response. Kate was still out cold, and the bruise covering half her face had surpassed violet and indigo and was turning an inky black.

Peter worried his bottom lip with his teeth, looking around anxiously. The attackers had fled, but he hadn’t pursued them, choosing to stay behind and check on Kate. Who was stubbornly remaining unconscious. 

“C'mon, Hawkeye,” he muttered anxiously. “Clint’s gonna kill me if you die.” Well, Clint would just have the first go. There was quite a list of people who would be in a rage if Kate kicked the bucket here.

Peter _really_ didn’t want to have to go up against America Chavez if he could help it.

He worriedly checked her pulse again. It was steady, but sluggish, and her neck didn’t seem to be broken.

He carefully lifted Kate up and cursed his empty webshooters as he started walking towards the nearest hospital.

She wouldn’t be happy about it, but at least she would be _alive_.

**Day 11 - Stitches**

**word count - 337**

“So, uh, where’d you learn how to sew?”

“Home Ec class.”

“Really?”

“Stop moving.”

“Oh, sorry.”

He stilled, watching Kate work out of the corner of his eye. Her stitches were tidy, if not particularly pretty looking. It would ‘get the job done’ as she had said. 

She worked in silence for a few more moments, brow furrowed in concentration as she got to the end and carefully tied off the thread. “And Clint.”

“What?” Peter tears his eyes away from his new stitches to give her a confused look. 

Kate busied herself with cleaning up all of the supplies she had used. “Clint. He taught me how to stitch up people. School only taught me how to stitch fabric.”

“Oh.”

“I’m afraid I never got that good at it,” she frowned. “You’re gonna scar.”

Peter shrugged, very carefully. The local anesthetic Kate had used on his arm was no match for his enhanced metabolism, and he had _definitely_ been feeling those last few stitches. “It’s okay. I’ve got others.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You’re like twelve, why do you already have scars?”

Peter smiled at her. “I’m Spider-Man. Maybe I’ll even tell you about them some time.”

She snorted. “An 'I’ll show you mine if you show me yours’ situation?”

“Why not?”

“You’re ridiculous. And still bleeding.” She moved forward and pressed some gauze over his stitches, quickly taping it in place. “Can you stay out of trouble long enough for me to get some food?”

“I didn’t _ask_ that sword guy to slice me up!”

“No,” she rolled her eyes. “You just swung into my fight and told him that swords are so 14th century.”

“Well, they _are.”_

“Stay here,” she said firmly. “And if you even think about scratching at those stitches, I’ll stitch your mouth closed, too.”

He held up his uninjured arm in a mock salute, and waved her out the door.

Hopefully Kate knew how to take stitches out, too, because May would be furious if she found out about this.

**Day 12 - "Don't Move"**

**word count - 301**

“Don’t move, Spidey.”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Peter whispered.

He stared straight ahead and thought about the lab report due in three days, and the English paper he had been procrastinating, and the Spanish quiz next week.

He didn’t think about Aunt May, or Ned, or MJ, or any of his other friends. 

He didn’t think about the bomb strapped to his chest, or the person who was currently trying to defuse it.

Instead, he ran through his vocab list for Spanish and tried to think of something intelligent to say about _Heart of Darkness_ by Conrad. Or at least a witty title for his paper. His teacher seemed to enjoy those.

He ignored the tears streaming out of his eyes, creating wet spots on his mask. The bomb squad person, focused as they were on the actual bomb, didn’t notice.

His enhanced hearing picked up his own name.

_“- Spider-Man, Queen’s local hero, and a member of a bomb squad. According to eyewitnesses, Spidey was last seen entering the warehouse two hours ago, but has not been seen since. As far as anyone knows, the hero is still inside, possibly helping to defuse a bomb. We’ll keep an eye on the situation here and let you know if there are any updates. Back to you, Pat.”_

God, he hated reporters. He hoped there wasn’t a crowd outside - he didn’t want to deal with the media tonight. If he made it to the other side of tonight.

Okay, bad thought, bad thought, go back to the vocab.

“Hey, keep breathin’, Spidey,” the bomb squad member said suddenly. “I don’t need you passin’ out on me now.”

“Right,” Peter wheezed, sucking in air. “Sorry.”

Anything he could do to make an easier job for the person trying to save both of their lives.

**Day 13 - Adrenaline**

**word count - 262**

They had been relaxing on the couch for most of the evening. Clint had taken out his hearing aids after the pizza was delivered - a new place had opened up a couple blocks away, so they were trying it for the first time. 

It had been fine for the first several minutes. Clint had inhaled two pieces, and Lucky had snapped up his, too. Kate had been eating with slightly more dignity in that she had only managed one piece in four minutes.

Still, it was fine, right up until it wasn’t.

Kate kicked him roughly, and Clint looked up, annoyed, until he saw the sweat beading on her brow as she signed frantically.

Index finger to her nose. Both index fingers touching in front of her chin, then pulled apart.

_Allergy._

“Fuck!” Clint exclaimed, jumping up from the couch. He couldn’t hear it, but he knew she must be wheezing as she struggled to breathe. 

SHIELD’s standard field kit came with a lot of things. One of them was an Epi-Pen. Clint was never more thankful for it. 

As the medicine worked through her system, Kate visibly gasped, taking in some much-needed air. Clint hovered worriedly next to her as her hands started to shake.

Epinephrine is, essentially, distilled adrenaline, and Clint could sympathize with her unsteady hands and blown pupils. He felt ready for action, felt the itch to move, and fumbled with his hearing aids before finally getting them in. “You okay, Katie-Kate?”

She groaned. “_Fuck_ pine nuts, and _double_ fuck whoever put them in a perfectly innocent pizza.”

**Day 14 - Tear-Stained**

**word count - 245**

**_WARNING: MAJOR CHARACTER_** ** _DEATH_**

The words were growing difficult to read again. Tony blinked rapidly and they sharpened for a moment before blurring again.

_“Fuck,”_ he hissed between clenched teeth, rubbing roughly at his eyes. He had to get through this, but it was so _hard._ All he wanted to do was curl up under the covers like a little kid and let the world continue on without him, but that just wasn’t an option. Everyone had told him he needed to do this. Everyone _needed_ him to do this.

The _kid_ needed him to do this.

Tony ran a hand through his hair and rubbed the other one against his chest, a nervous habit he had never let go of after the removal of the arc reactor. 

He took a deep breath and picked up the pen again. He could be typing, of course, but handwriting this seemed more appropriate. More personal.

He needed to do this, to see this all the way through. Guilt be damned.

_Peter was more than just a high schooler, of course. But he was more than just a hero, too. The spider powers didn’t make him brave or kind or loyal - that was just Peter. _

A tear rolled down his nose and dropped onto the paper. He ignored it.

There would be more before all this was over. 

By the time he finished giving Peter’s eulogy, he was sure that the speech would be tear-stained to the point of being completely unreadable.

**Day 15 - Scars**

**word count - 247**

**continued from Day 11**

“First time I went through a plate glass window,” Kate said, tracing the thin line on her forearm.

Peter rolled up his sleeves to reveal two identical burn scars, right where his webshooters usually sat. “Electro,” he said simply.

Kate lifted her left leg and poked at a circular scar on her calf. “Bullet. Through-and-through.” She twisted to show the other side, which was larger and more puckered with scar tissue.

Peter rolled up his shorts enough to reveal his own circular scar. “Not a through-and-through, but the first time I got shot. By the police, might I add.”

Kate turned her back to Peter and brushed her hair to one side, tugging on her shirt to show the top of a burn that was seared into her shoulder blade. “Bumped into the edge of one of America’s portals.”

He was quiet as she turned back around and hesitated before pulling his shirt off. Three long, thick scars ran parallel to each other across his chest. “The Lizard,” he said softly. 

She sucked in a sympathetic breath as she looked over the old damage. She remembered hearing about that. The Lizard was the first enhanced villain Spider-Man had gone up against, and it made her heart ache something fierce to know that Peter’s worst scar was from his first super villain. 

“Well, I can’t top that,” she said, trying for levity and almost making it.

“Yet,” he said darkly. “We’re superheroes, Kate. We’ll have more scars soon.”

**Day 16 - Pinned Down**

**word count - 224**

“I need backup over here!" 

_"What’s going on?”_ Cap asked.

Tony popped up, out of cover, and got off a few more shots before ducking down again. “They trashed my suit. I’ve got one gauntlet, an earpiece, and nothing else. I’m pinned down and need some help!”

_“On my way,”_ Natasha spoke up. _“Hold out for a few more minutes, Stark.”_

“What do you think I’m -” he cut himself off with a choked noise, the pain suddenly lancing through his body putting him even beyond screaming. 

He was vaguely aware of Nat and Steve shouting at him for an update as he looked down. The sight of the rebar sticking through his abdomen made him dizzy. A distant part of him was thinking about how it had probably missed his kidney at least, but there was definitely a lot of damage to both intestines there.

_“STARK, RESPOND!”_

Breathing hurt. Talking was worse. But he managed. “I'm… pinned…” he wheezed. The rebar had gone through the car he had been using as cover, all the way through him, and he didn’t want to think about how they were going to remove the rebar from him, much less how they were going to remove him from the side of the car.

Tony blacked out before he could respond to any more of his teammates frantic calls.

**Day 17 - "Stay With Me"**

**word count - 240**

“Stay with me,” he whispered, hands patting clumsily at the still face. “C'mon, _c'mon,_ stay with me!”

There was no response to his begging. Tony’s face remained stubbornly passive, and Peter sucked in a ragged breath. Should he try CPR? He remembered the theory, but he’d never done it in practice, let alone with super strength. He could make things worse. He could crush Tony’s chest on accident.

“Please, _please_ wake up,” Peter half-sobbed.

Still no reply, but he finally noticed the slight rise and fall of Tony’s chest.

All of the air whooshed out of him in relief and he practically collapsed next to Tony on the ground. _Not dead._ He wasn’t dead. Just knocked out. He could work with just knocked out.

Peter looked up at the rubble above them, knowing that it continued on more than he wanted to think about. He’d had a building dropped on him before, but that had only been one level. This…

He swallowed and looked away, back towards Tony’s still face. They were too deep for him to use his super strength to dig out, not without possibly making things worse. It was a heart-racing combination of luck and his spider sense that they had ended up in this little stable pocket at all instead of being crushed as ths building came down around them.

All he could do was wait. Wait for rescue, and wait for Tony to wake up.

**Day 18 - Muffled Scream**

**word count - 286**

It was the sound that really broke their hearts.

All of New York, and most of the country, if not the world, was watching by the time Spider-Man was shocked with enough electricity to make smoke rise from his mask. As it coursed through his body, he had screamed in pain, though it was muffled by the gag that had been forced into his mouth through the mask.

He had been the last one left standing - with all other heroes either off-planet or already incapacitated, it had only been Spidey left. Restrained and exhausted, sure, but at least he was standing.

Until enough electricity to kill a normal human went coursing through his body, and he let out a muffled scream as he fell.

_That_ was what had broken the dam. As their last hero fell, New York rose up and collectively decided that they were not interested in any evil alien overlords today, thank you very much.

The first rock bounced off the chest of the alien who had zapped Spidey, dropping to bounce off his head, too. It was enough for him to open his eyes behind the mask, gazing out blearily at the crowd that was rapidly turning into an angry mob.

Spidey wheezed out a broken laugh as the shouting got louder, and the alien who had zapped him leaned over, pulling off the gag roughly. “What is so amusing, arachnid?”

“You're… fucked…” he said hoarsely. “You've… pissed off… the regular… people.”

The alien scoffed, but as a bottle hit their head, they cursed in their own language. There was an undercut of worry in the tone of their words, and Spider-Man grinned as New York rallied to protect its favorite bug.

**Day 19 - Asphyxiation**

**word count - 256**

The thing about not being able to breathe, about being slowly asphyxiated, is everything slows down. Each heartbeat takes an eternity, while your lungs spasm desperately, searching for air that isn’t coming.

There was a single moment, after the hands touched her neck and before they tightened, that Kate was able to draw one breath.

Survival instinct and technique warred in her, but it didn’t really matter. She wasn’t enhanced. She wasn’t like most of the people she ran with - she had no powers, no abilities, no suits of armor. Kate was good, the best even, but she was still achingly human.

And the guy who had his hands wrapped around her throat _was_ enhanced. She was strong, she had to be to pull her arrows, but he was so much stronger.

The only reason he hadn’t snapped her neck immediately was because he was enjoying laughing at her struggles.

Blackness was starting to creep in at the edges of her vision when a red-clad foot suddenly appeared, kicking the guy in the temple and forcing him to drop Kate.

She fell to her knees, gasping for air and listening to the familiar sounds of a super beat-down.

“Hasn’t anyone ever told you to pick on someone your own size? Well, at least someone in your own weight class. You are very tall.” _Crack!_ “Good thing I’m still stronger!”

Kate’s lips twitched, almost smiling as she worked to get her body back under control. 

_Thanks for the assist, Webhead,_ she thought. _Right on time, as always_.

**Day 20 - Trembling**

**word count - 156**

“Are you okay?”

There was no response. Tony frowned and stepped a little closer. “Kid? You okay?”

The child sitting on the ground, curled up with their face buried in their arms, didn’t reply. As Tony watched, they shivered violently, trembling in their thin, dirty clothes.

Tony pulled out his phone and pointed it at the kid. “FRIDAY, what’s the rundown here?”

_“Six year old girl,”_ she replied promptly. _“Malnourished, dehydrated, and very cold. Superficial bruising, evidence of older injuries that have healed.”_

“Hearing?”

_“Looks normal in my scans, Boss.”_

He nodded and crouched down in front of the girl. “Can you understand me? I want to help you. Food, water, clothes, a warm place to stay.”

A pair of suspicious brown eyes looked up at him. “F-food?” Her voice trembled almost as much as her body, and Tony’s heart broke again.

“Yeah, kiddo,” he said. “Food. Come with me, okay? I’ll take care of you.”

**Day 21 - Laced Drink**

**word count - 308**

Harry always threw the _best_ parties. This was a long-established fact - if the Osborn penthouse was the party locale, it was going to be a great one.

Things had gone wrong before, of course. There was that time the cheerleading squad had gotten too drunk and had tried to do a pyramid on the balcony - thankfully no one had gone over the side. There was the time Flash had locked Peter in Harry’s closet, and then puked in front of it. There was the time Norman had shown up in a rage and shut everything down while screaming at Harry.

So, while Osborn parties were the best, they had their pitfalls, same as any other party.

Still, as Peter wobbled over to hang on to one of the barstools, he thought that this wasn’t normal. Everyone except a handful of non-drinkers were passed out around the room, and it wasn’t even midnight yet. Even Harry was down - he was a borderline alcoholic at times, but he knew his limits and hated getting blackout drunk.

Peter blinked owlishly as he watched one of the swim team girls frantically shaking one of her teammates, to no avail. She looked up and said something to him, but it was so distorted that he had no clue what it might have been.

“Hhnn… drugs…” he managed to get out past his thick tongue. 

Alcohol didn’t do much for him anymore. He’d been drugged - they all had. The drinks had been laced somehow. It was only thanks to his powers that he wasn’t passed out on the floor with all the rest.

He needed to call… someone. If only he could remember how to move his hands.

There was no way this was an accident, and that meant someone who was trying to hurt Harry.

Not allowed to happen. Not on Peter’s watch.

**Day 22 - Hallucination**

**word count - 318**

Kate had seen on Twitter that Spider-Man was having a throw-down in Central Park with several of his rogues, so she had headed out to see if he wanted a hand. By the time she got there, though, the fight was over and Spidey seemed… agitated.

He was pacing in very wobbly circles, lurching from side to side like a drunk, clutching his head and muttering to himself. There were no bad guys to be seen, and that worried Kate, because she knew she had beaten the police here, so they couldn’t have been arrested already.

“Spidey?” she called out, stepping a little closer, bow still at the ready.

His head snapped towards her and he almost faceplanted trying to get to her. “You’re here,” he mumbled breathlessly. “You’re here, you’re here, you’re _here.”_ Before Kate could say anything, he threw his arms around her shoulders, slumping against her. She staggered a little under the unexpected weight and brought her free hand up to his back.

“Easy, bud. What happened?" 

She liked Peter, and considered them friends, but he was never this tactile. The last time she had gotten a hug from him, it had been after a very awful day where both of them had almost died.

So why was he practically nuzzling her neck in Central Park?

He sighed, and she felt the warmth of it through the mask. "You’re here.”

She got the strangest feeling that he wasn’t actually talking to her. “What’s my name, Webs?”

“You’re _here.”_

“I know I am,” she said, rapidly getting more worried. “Spider-Man. _Peter._ What is my name?”

He sighed again, holding her tighter. “Gwen.”

Kate let her bow drop from her hand, bringing it up to embrace him fully, heart somewhere around her knees.

He was hallucinating, and his mind had projected the face of his dead girlfriend over Kate.

Shit. What was she going to do now?

**Day 23 - Bleeding Out**

**word count - 220**

** _WARNING: MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH_ **

“He bled out." 

The words are very distant, as if Kate was at one end of a long tunnel and the doctor was at the other. The words echoed and overlaped other words that followed those first three. Words like _too late_ and _couldn’t start a transfusion in time_ and _I’m so sorry, Miss Bishop._

Over it all was just _he bled out he bled out he bled out_ repeating like some dreadful chant, like some spell of Billy’s gone awry.

She wanted to scream, to shake the doctor, to demand that they _fix him,_ but she didn’t. All the rage was contained behind a thick glass wall of emptiness.

So Kate just nodded and robotically signed the papers they handed to her and screams and screams and _screams_ in her own head about it all. She took the personal affects handed to her without feeling any of the textures, even though internally she had thrown everything against the wall and screamed at them to save him, to do _something._

She desperately wanted to text Clint, wanted to break into his shitty apartment and curl up on his couch with him and Lucky and watch a bad movie, throwing popcorn at the screen when something unbearably cheesy happens.

But she couldn’t.

Because Clint Barton had bled out in a hospital.

**Day 24 - Secret Injury**

**word count - 360**

She didn’t say a word because Tommy had a broken arm, and Billy was concussed, and Teddy’s ribs were either fractured or severely bruised, and David needed stitches, and in the face of all that, stomach pain didn’t really register as an injury.

So Kate stitched up David while Tommy pestered Billy to keep him awake while America put a splint on him and Teddy focused on breathing shallowly, and she didn’t mention the pain in her abdomen. It was probably just strained muscles, right?

And when Clint asked her a few hours later how the last Young Avengers mission had gone, she recounted to ways the boys got injured, and didn’t tell him about how her stomach still hurt. It was probably nothing, right?

She didn’t _mean_ for it to be a secret, she just hadn’t thought it was worth reporting, and when she woke up in the middle of the night and stumbled into the bathroom, feeling nauseous, she half-hoped Clint didn’t notice her getting off the couch where they had both fallen asleep because it was _fine,_ right?

“Katie, oh my god, why didn’t you say anything?”

“’m fine,” she mumbled, still bent over the toilet, wondering when Clint had followed her into the bathroom.

“You’re really not, because you’re throwing up fucking _blood.”_

“Am I?” She opened her eyes enough to look down. The toilet looked like it was filled with coffee grounds, and her stomach lurched again. She heaved some more, only half aware of Clint on the phone behind her.

“This is Agent Barton, requesting Med-Evac from my apartment for Kate Bishop, codename Hawkeye… no, I _know_ I’m Hawkeye, she is too, check your damn records… we can argue about this later, bud, just get a fucking evac here _now,_ she’s got internal bleeding!… _Yes I fucking know what that looks like, she’s throwing up partially digested blood, okay?_ I want an evac here in three minutes or I’m coming after you _personally,_ got it?" 

A hand landed on Kate’s shoulder and she shuddered under the heat of it. When had she gotten so cold? 

"Hang on, Katie. We’ll get you patched up soon.”

**Day 25 - Humiliation**

**word count - 527**

He hadn’t really been left alone after the rescue. The doctors had hovered almost as much as Rhodey, and even when he had been cleaned up after months of sitting in his own sweat and dirt, it was a sponge bath.

After the cheeseburger and the press conference and assuring Dum-E and U and JARVIS that he was still in one piece (mostly), Tony had gone to his master bathroom and turned on his shower. He wanted to be clean, to wash his own hair and goatee, to rinse off the travel dust and the weight of his experience. He wanted the hot water to wash clean his very soul.

He stepped in, automatically turned his face up into the spray, and immediately felt panic rise behind the arc reactor.

** _Water - face - air - can’t breathe - held under - drowning - drowning - drowning - DROWNING!_ **

Tony’s back hit the cool tile of the opposite wall as he gasped in the steamy air. He could feel his heartbeat in the tissues around the reactor, felt his fingertips, pressed against the wall, pulse in the same fast rhythm.

_“Sir, I am detecting an elevated heart rate. Are you all right?”_

Tony’s mouth opened and closed a few times, struggling to form words, to keep from screaming instead.

Thankfully, no one knew him better than JARVIS. _“You are currently in the master bath of Stark Mansion in Malibu, California, United States. No one else is in the room. Miss Potts is on the phone downstairs, in a conference call with several stockholders.” He paused. “You are safe here, Sir.”_

Tony nodded mutely, closing his eyes as tears welled in both frustration and humiliation.

Those assholes had taken away the simple pleasure of a hot shower from him.

_“Would you like me to continue?”_

He nodded, thankful that JARVIS had overridden his protocols to keep the bathroom cameras off, that he had recognized the emergency situation, that Tony could continue to be nonverbal.

_“Dum-E and U are in the workshop. U is currently dusting off your desk, and Dum-E is putting your most frequently used wrenches out on a table. He is eagerly waiting for you to start working with them again.”_

That made a little smile appear on Tony’s face, which prompted JARVIS to continue.

_“Colonel Rhodes is en-route to Edwards Air Force Base, and I estimate he will arrive there within the hour. Mr. Stane has returned to Stark Industries, and is organizing a meeting with all the department heads.”_ He paused for a moment. _“Mrs. McGannon in HR is also putting together a Welcome Back-slash-Get Well Soon card from the company. She has already received over 150 responses from various employees, many of which include personal messages.”_

Tony smiled more. “They’re not all mad, then,” he managed quietly.

_“No, Sir.”_ If an AI could sound relieved, JARVIS definitely did. _“In fact, several messages show support for your decision.”_

Tony nodded and stepped out of the shower. “Turn that off, will you, J? I think I’ll skip clean-up and go straight to bed.”

_“Yes, Sir.”_ A pause that seemed almost warm. _“It’s good to have you back, Sir.”_

“Good to be back, J.”

**Day 26 - Abandoned**

**word count - 307**

He’d thought it was a joke at the beginning. In the middle of a battle, his spider-sense had warned him of something coming from behind, and he had ducked just in time for an arrow to lodge itself in the monster, going right through the air where his head had been.

Hawkeye was just messing with him, right? Some sort of hazing thing.

Except, as the battle wore on, he found himself dodging _more_ arrows, and even the shield a few times. And he was pretty sure Cap wasn’t the hazing type.

Falcon cut past overhead and Peter shot two webs up to him, sticking onto the supports on either side of his shoulders. It was a move they had practiced several times after running into each other on patrol, and had even used during fights before, but this time, Sam wobbled dangerously.

“What the hell?!” He looked around him, taking no notice of the spider along for the ride. “Keep an eye out, might be a telekinetic around here. Felt like someone grabbed my wings, but I don’t see anything.”

Peter, holding on to his webs just a few feet below Sam’s body, frowned. 

His heart jumped eagerly as he saw Iron Man approaching. Mr. Stark would put an end to this dumb game, right?

He pulled up alongside Sam and Peter, looking over at them. “Yeah, I don’t see anything,” he announced. “Not even a heat signature from someone invisible.”

Peter felt ill. Mr. Stark liked to tease and banter, but he couldn’t see him going along with this sort of middle school prank. Which meant that they really _couldn’t_ see him.

He let go of the webs, dropping onto a fire escape below, and watched the two fly off, feeling hurt and abandoned and angry and determined to figure out what was going on.

**Day 27 - Ransom**

**word count - 177**

When a text came through from Peter’s phone, containing an image, Tony expected a selfie from Spider-Man, or a meme, or a screenshot of a hi-score in a game. Basically anything except what he actually got.

The picture was of Peter, his head held up by a hand in his hair. A black eye was starting to swell on his face, a cut on his cheek dribbled blood, and his nose was bleeding over his lips, too. His shirt collar was torn and blood-spattered.

Someone had grabbed him - not Spider-Man, but Peter Parker. And Pete, so worried about the people around him, so invested in a secret identity that Tony had never even attempted to have, had allowed it to happen.

Because he _trusted_ Tony, and wasn’t that the scariest bit of all?

The text below the image was a dollar amount that Tony didn’t even register. It didn’t matter, _nothing mattered_ except finding Peter and his kidnappers, and showing them that _no one_ was allowed to hurt the people Tony cared about. 

_Especially_ not the kid.

**Day 28 - Beaten**

**word count - 358**

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He scoffed and looked away from her. “Do _you?”_

“…I mean, kinda.”

The SoulScape is endless, orange skies reflecting against a glassy ground. Everyone is here, heroes, villains, and civilians. Everyone except those left behind, those who weren’t Snapped away. 

It’s not hard to find people in the SoulScape. Think about them, and you’ll appear next to them. If you don’t, it means they’re still on Earth.

Kate had tried to find her sister, but failed, so she had gone looking for other heroes. Clint, Tony, Steve, Nat, Thor, Bruce - all had made it. She had finally found Peter, a long, long ways away from anyone else. 

Distance is relative in the SoulScape. He was still light years away, though.

“Why?” he asked. “What’s there to talk about?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know what happened on the spaceship. You could tell me about it, and I’ll fill you in on what happened in Wakanda.”

“We were beaten, badly. All of us. What more is there to say?” He crossed his arms over his chest and sighed. “Thanos won.”

“Yeah,” she said, looking down. “I know.” She had seen the snap, and then watched her fellow heroes, her friends, turn to dust, felt herself start blowing away. “But, you know, Tony and them are still on Earth. Maybe they could -”

“Thanos threw a whole _moon_ at Mr. Stark,” Peter said flatly. “And that was before he had all the stones. Listen, I - I’m not trying to be pessimistic, just realistic, okay? This is it. We’re done. We lost. And Thanos is probably on the other side of the universe now, and there’s no way to get him. Mr. Stark is going to die either on that planet or in space, because all the spaceships there were damaged in the fight. And everyone on Earth…?” He shook his head. “They have no resources to go to space and find Thanos. It’s hopeless.”

Kate looked away, eyes on the horizon that never changes. “Yeah,” she said softly. “You’re right. But they’re the _Avengers_. They do their best work when they have something to avenge.”

**Day 29 - Numb**

**word count - 220**

She couldn’t feel her feet.

Well, that wasn’t entirely accurate. She felt the vibrations of each heavy step through her whole body, she knew that she was still moving forward, and she felt the awful, almost wooden sensation of numb flesh within a tangible object, in this case her boots, but she couldn’t feel anything else within the boots.

Her toes had gone numb a while back, and her hands were stuffed under her armpits, but they were slowly losing all feeling, too. She was sure that her lips were pale, possibly even going blue by now. Her nose was also completely numb.

Kate was still shivering, though, and she knew that was a good sign. As long as she kept shivering, it meant that her body was responsive enough to try and keep her warm. 

She just had to keep going, just try to stave off frostbite and hypothermia, for a little longer. Rescue had to be close. They had told her to head east, away from the setting sun, and they would meet her along the way.

She’d been walking for so long, they just _had_ to be almost to her, right?

The wind gusted violently, and Kate staggered against the force of it, barely remaining upright.

She just had to keep going.

Rescue would come soon.

_Right?_

**Day 30 - Recovery**

**word count - 211**

**continued from Day 24**

“You’re luckier than the damn dog.”

Kate blinked slowly, body feeling out of sync with her mind.

Her stomach hurt, and her throat felt raw.

“Doc says if you had waited much longer, you would have been done for.”

She slowly turned her head, and found Clint in the chair next to the bed. His eyes were on his hands, where he was folding scraps of paper into darts; a nervous habit that Kate had never mentioned that she knew about.

She tried to speak, and all that came out was a strangled sort of squeaking noise. Clint’s eyes flicked up to her, then back down.

“They had to pump your stomach. Be grateful you were unconscious for that, it really sucks.” He furrowed his brow as he redid a fold. “Don't… don’t scare me like that, Katie-Kate.”

She clumsily patted at the bed near his hands, and he obligingly held one out, eyes still on the paper in his other hand.

_S-O-R-R-Y_ she signed slowly into his palm.

A smile tugged at his lips and he set aside the darts to sign back.

_All-good Hawkeye._

She smiled back, settling more comfortably against the pillows. She would recover. And next time, she would speak up about any pain after a battle.

**Day 31 - Embrace**

**word count - 145**

A lot of questions ran through Peter’s mind in the three seconds between Mr. Stark appearing and the embrace he was immediately pulled into, but somehow the first one out of his mouth was “is this a hug?”

Tony gave a hoarse laugh and squeezed him tighter for a second before pulling back enough to smile at him. “This time, it’s _definitely_ a hug, kid.”

Peter beamed back at him and hugged him again.

“I don’t - what - how are you _here?_ You _died,_ Mr. Stark, I went to the funeral!”

“Yeah, heard about that,” he said, far too casually for someone whose nose was half-buried in Peter’s curls. “Let’s just say that when you give a super soldier access to time travel, he does his best to destroy the time-space continuum.”

Peter laughed. “Well, I’m glad he did.”

“Me, too, bud,” he said. “Me, too.”


End file.
